Vincenzo Fiorentini (Padova, Italy, 1960) is
associate professor of condensed matter physics at Cagliari University
and the Director of SLACS,
the Sardinian Laboratory for computational materials
science. He is the proud father of two terrific
girls, Isabella, 15, and
Beatrice, 13, and with his third special girl, physicist Paola Alippi, of 4-years-old Giovanni, formerly known as "il Girino" (the tadpole). See Giovanni's photos here on Flickr.
Currently he is devoting most of his time to his offsprings, trying to
keep up with the work with his
research group (see link "Electronic
materials") at the Physics Department of Cagliari University and at
the Cagliari
unit of CNR-IOM, within two major EU projects and one each from IIT and
Fondazione BdS. In the rest (?) of his time he reads and
listens to music, blogs occasionally, and has fun with Mac and iYounameit's. He recently bought a 16-keys clarinet with serious intentions,
but so far he hasn't really taken on study seriously. VF's siblings
are Antonio, in the nautical business
(books, charts, equipment,
transfer, skippering, ...); Erna, Heisenberg
fellow in the field of history of science and art at the Humboldt Universität
Berlin; Caterina, free-lance musician, teacher and -formerly- landscape geographer based in north-eastern Italy.
VF received
the laurea in Physics in 1987 at University of Trieste, Italy, with a
thesis
on double acceptor spectra in Ge with prof. A. Baldereschi.
Thereafter,
he spent over a year in the group of J. Schneider at the Fraunhofer
Institut
für Angewandte Festkoerperphysik working on acceptor and quantum-well
detector spectra. He then moved back to Trieste to work on a Ph.D.
thesis
on corrections to spectral properties in density functional theory
until
Oct 1991. After that, following a short stay at Cagliari University, he
spent 18 months in the group of M. Scheffler at the
Fritz-Haber-Institut,
Berlin, working on GaN, transition metal surfaces, and Ag surfactant
assisted
growth. Meanwhile he was appointed assistant professor at Cagliari
University,
whereto he moved in October 1993. In January 2001
he was named associate professor at the University of Messina, and
thereafter
appointed a solid state physics associate professorship at Cagliari
University. He has been (2004-08) the Director of the Sardinian
Laboratory for computational materials science (SLACS), a research unit of the National Research Council.
He has worked
extensively in the physics and materials science of defects,
interfaces,
surfaces, and bulk properties of semiconductors, insulators, and
metals,
under the funding of several agencies including Regione Sardegna,
University
of Cagliari, INFM, CNR, the UE, and MURST/MIUR. He has received Humboldt scholarship
which he spent in 1998-2000 at the Walter Schottky Institut in Munich.
He also spent 6 months at Philips Research at IMEC in Leuven, Belgium as a Marie Curie invited professor.
He has been a scientific
advisor for INFM, the Max-Planck Gesellschaft, the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Italian Ministries of Industry and
Research, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Semiconductor
Division of the National Institute for Condensed Matter Physics. He is
a member of several conference program committees, and a referee for
many journals including Nature, PRL, PRB, and APL. He teaches mostly
Computational Physics and Solid State Physics. He has been
co-organizing the Computational Materials Science Workshops and
Euroconferences (1994-2006).
